OUR NEW CROCK POT

Growing up, my Mom (and one of my Grandmothers) always had one of these in the cabinet....a Crock Pot.  I remember many fond meals coming out of it, for awhile anyway.

But then it always seemed like one of those things that eventually got relegated to the back of the cabinet and not used as often.

Crock Pot Touch Screen

Flash forward 20 years or so and this past weekend, we decided (well, 2nd Man decided) we just had to have one.  I think he was watching

Cook's Country or America's Test Kitchen and they were using it for cooking and were raving about the benefits.

We went to America's Test Kitchen website and luckily, they tested several models and this was their highest rated model, and it performed the best in all of their tests.

It's the Crock Pot brand, Touchscreen Programmable 6 1/2 quart model.

Crock Pot Touch Screen with something delicious cooking

Now we haven't cooked in it yet, hope to do that this weekend, but we were thinking that it would be a great choice for us during this whole farm remodeling process.

We could either throw something in there in the morning when we head out to the farm, and then come back home to the city and a waiting dinner, or we could take it with us out there to the farm, plug it in, and put something on while we work out there.  At the end of a long day, dinner will be ready for us, without having to heat up the kitchen.  Appliances (a stove and a fridge) will be among the last things we buy out there so this might be the perfect dinner option for having a hot meal.

I checked out a book from the library on Slow Cooking, and they had several...apparently slow cooker cooking is making a comeback.

These are three really good cookbooks:

Click for link to Amazon

Click for link to Amazon

Click for link to Amazon

Not Your Mothers Slow Cooker is the one I checked out from the library.  Just got it last night so we haven't had much book time with it but it looks like some good options for dinner.

The Gourmet Slow Cooker is one that I found at Half Price Books the other day.  Some GREAT recipes in there, they require some prep before going in the slow cooker, but look to be worth it as an end result.

Slow Cooker Revolution is sort of the one that started us down this path, since it's put out by the folks at America's Test Kitchen. I've ordered this for 2nd Man as a surprise (no worries, he rarely has time to read the blog so I'm safe there, ha ha), but it has not yet arrived.  I have no worries about getting this book sight unseen, as their cookbooks are ALWAYS awesome, and filled with background on how they worked to develop the perfect, final version of each recipe.

So there you have it, our fun, new kitchen toy.
Hopefully it will help us on those long days of working on the property.
We will, of course, keep you updated!

So, any good recipe ideas you all have to share?

EDIT:  Adding, based on Kelly's suggestion, a link to the website for the entire Fix it and Forget it series.  There are some awesome recipes on the website too!
You can find it HERE.

ENJOY!